


The First Page

by still_lycoris



Category: X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Fandom
Genre: Bullying, F/M, First Meetings, Hope, reference to solitary confinement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 04:42:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9531932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: Erik is in hiding after the events in Washington, not really sure what he's waiting for. Then he finds it.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [Unforgotten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unforgotten/pseuds/Unforgotten) in the [xmenrarepairs17](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/xmenrarepairs17) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
>  
> 
> Anything about how they met, and especially how Erik came to tell her who he was on that first night.

Erik was not hiding.

Well. He was hiding. Obviously, because he was a wanted man and any wanted man had to hide. But he wasn’t _hiding_. He was just keeping himself concealed, being careful, watching and waiting for the right moment. 

Not that he was sure what the right moment would be. 

In fact, truth be told, he wasn’t quite sure about anything any more and he didn’t like it one little bit.

The world seemed uncomfortably changed – which was unsurprising, really. He had been locked away from it for ten years, ten years of thickest silence and no news. Now he was out in it again and it was cold and it was _loud_ , almost unbearably loud. Wherever he went, he could hear people _talking_ , constant babbling and it made his head ache. He knew that it was because of the enforced isolation, knew that was why he had felt so out of control ever since leaving his cell but it filled him with rage that he could allow it to affect him so. He was not weak, not pathetic. He was strong and if he could just get rid of these damn headaches and focus his mind better, everything would be well and he would ... what?

He wasn’t entirely sure. He felt oddly uncertain about his previous goals. A part of him knew that nothing would change and yet a part of him couldn’t help seeing that things _were_ changing, just a little, but they were. The newspapers he stole spoke so glowingly of Mystique and her actions, there were columns about how this proved mutants were not bad people, about how they were members of society that should not be discriminated against just because of the actions of one psychopath.

Words were easy. He knew that. Change was harder. People didn’t change, did they? They never changed. No matter what they were saying, it couldn’t be. He was sure that it couldn’t.

But he didn’t know. And so he continued to lie low and watch and wait for something that he didn’t really understand. 

He did not choose to go to Poland so much as end up there, stowing away on a ship and then a train and then hitch-hiking until suddenly, he was there. He wasn’t quite sure that he wanted to be, wasn’t sure how he felt about being so close to the past but in many ways, it was as good as anywhere. His Polish was rusty and had never been terribly good to begin with but since he currently looked like a homeless man with a beard, he wasn’t too concerned. At least here, they were less likely to know his name and face so well. Oh, they would know it, what he had done and ensured his name would be remembered forever but perhaps the attempted assassination of an American president would hold less interest here.

Despite his years of captivity, his mind and body had not forgotten how to live under the radar. He hid and he scavenged for food as he had always done, watching, waiting, getting the lay of where he was, working out how best to blend in. He was good at this. He always had been. And he was _not_ overwhelmed by the world.

He was hiding in an alley when the boy ran past him. 

Erik’s first reaction was step back into the darkness, conceal himself. A group of youths were running after the boy, obviously intending to harm him. One of them shouted something and it took Erik a second to translate it: _Bastard mutant_.

He thrust out with his power, looking for metal, catching hold of dustbin lid, preparing to twist it into spears when a door was thrown open.

“What is happening here?!”

Erik did not drop the metal but he paused it. The woman that stood in the doorway seemed unafraid. She glared at the group, hands on her hips, chin held high. They glared back at her but the mutant child immediately sprang up and vanished into the darkness.

“You should be ashamed!” the woman spat. She had long dark hair that swirled around her shoulders as she shouted. “How dare you abuse a child that way? Go away before I throw water onto you!”

“We’re not scared of you, lady!” one of them shouted back. “Nobody’s scared of you!”

“Well, you should be. Go away!”

“You should do as she says,” Erik said quietly.

None of them had known he was there but the lady didn’t jump. She only glanced at him, as though she had known he was there the whole time and had simply been waiting for him to back her up. Erik admired her calmness.

The youths glared but finally moved away, perhaps sensing that there was something more to this. The lady watched them go, arms folded.

“Are you a mutant?” Erik asked.

“No,” she said, turning to look at him. “Are you?”

The question was so startlingly direct that Erik answered it truthfully.

“Yes.”

“Then you are not safe here,” she said decisively. “Come inside with me. I will help you get away.”

“I don’t need help. And I can hide what I am.”

“Some of them are good at finding,” she said, still staring at him. Her eyes were deep and keen and Erik felt almost like he ought to move out of the force of her gaze. There was something about her, human or not ... 

“Come in,” she said again, gesturing at the inside of the house. “I will help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” he said again and then, almost aggressively because he wanted to prove that he didn’t need her kindness, her doubtless faked kindness because if she was not a mutant, how could she really want to help them? “My name is Erik Lehnsherr.”

She blinked, just once. Her head tilted slightly and Erik could see she was looking past his beard and the dirt, seeking the face of the man that she had probably seen in countless newspapers, on the news. He waited for coldness, for disgust. For her to step back into the little house, slam the door and call the police.

“Then you really do need my help,” she said and there was no room for argument in her voice. “My name is Magda. Come inside.”

Erik knew that he could still refuse. He could turn and walk away and she couldn’t stop him. Nobody could make him do anything that he didn’t want to do, never again.

And yet somehow, there was something about her. There was something about _this_. Something confusing, something that drew him.

Perhaps he was just tired of running.

Slowly, uncertainly, he took a few steps forward towards the door and Magda and into the light.


End file.
